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Electrical Field Treats Brain Cancer
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue May 29, 2007 08:07 PM
from the reverse-EEG dept.
from the reverse-EEG dept.
amigoro writes "A device that specifically targets rapidly growing cancer cells with intermediate frequency electrical fields doubled the survival rates of patients with brain cancer, according to an article apperaring in PNAS. The device uses electrical fields to disrupt tumor growth by interfering with cell division of cancerous cells, causing them to stop proliferating and die off instead of dividing and growing. Healthy brain cells rarely divide and have different electrical properties than cancerous brain cells. This allows the device to target cancer cells without affecting the healthy cells. Essentially no device-related side effects were seenin the clinical trial."
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Confused (Score:2, Insightful)
Get more Confused (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Get more Confused (Score:4, Informative)
Also by Edgar Cayce if I remember correctly -- he also mentioned the use of specific frequencies of light.
Parent
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Not new at all. We learned all about it in 1st year EE.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_field [wikipedia.org].
Ian
Well oxygen can be a poision too (Score:3, Insightful)
Not enough O2 and you die. Too much and you die (approx 2 atmospheres partial pressure IIRC).
Water too. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Strange [wikipedia.org]
Most drugs are poisons if taken in excessive quantities too
Obligitory (Score:2)
1931 called (Score:5, Interesting)
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It seems logical, then, that certain types of cells might find their growth enhanced, or retarded, by electrical stimuli that a different cell type might not be significantly affected by, either one way or another.
Once we have that type of a differentiation, and can do it repeatedly, that fo
from the article (Score:5, Informative)
this is an interesting application- for a long time it has been known that cancer has drastically different biochemistry [clearly seen on some MRI scans] so it stands to reason they might also have odd electrical properties as well. since the treatment is confined to the immediate area near electrods placed on the skin of the scull any other effects would be limited to that area as well.
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I think that is about half right. because the field can not penetrate too far from the electrodes you would need to insert them inside the body to work. as for them being uncomfortable, it depends on how strong the field is. if it is very strong there would need to be a way to desensitize nerves to the field- this can be in the form of anesthetics or outright temporary overload of nerves. that isnt as danger
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http://www.sextek.com/products/vaginalbp.html [sextek.com]
http://www.sextek.com/products/large-bipolar.html [sextek.com]
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If the field is too shallow to go through the skull, trepanning should allow electrodes to get close to almost any brain tumor that needs killing, though you would have to place them carefully.
Re:Electrodes? (what about TMS?) (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, in the current iteration it seems that it delivers electric fields directly through the scalp:
http://www.novocuretrial.com/science.html [novocuretrial.com]
The NovoTTF-100A device used in this trial delivers very low intensity, alternating electric fields to the tumor site through the scalp.
If the answer is not very deep then you couldn't treat stuff like cervical cancer or colon cancer, because you can't stick electrodes (comfortably?) onto those body parts. If its a big field, however, that you slide the person into (like an MRI) with a deep-penetrating field, it'd make more sense.
I'm wondering if transcranial magnetic stimulation [wikipedia.org] (a technique I work with, but in a very different context) could be useful in non-invasively delivering such a field. It's effective depth is only a couple of centimeters max (unless somebody's using an experimental Deep TMS [brainsway.com] system), but it might be better than scalp electrodes. It would be impossible to get it to run continuously at the 100-300kHz rate that their 2004 journal paper says is needed, but it's possible that single rapidly-changing pulses at a slower rate could have the desired effect.
Parent
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My exhaustive study of the Slashdot summary leads me to believe this only being used on brain cancer. The electrical field prevents the cells from dividing and healthy brain cells rarely divide. The implication seems to be that this wouldn't work elsewhere because the cells in other parts of the body divide quite frequently.
It's not comfortable. (Score:4, Informative)
If the answer is not very deep then you couldn't treat stuff like cervical cancer or colon cancer, because you can't stick electrodes (comfortably?) onto those body parts.
It's not comfortable, but it's nicer than dying. It's called brachytherapy [cancerhelp.org.uk].
Parent
Wow (Score:2)
Just reinventing the wheel (Score:4, Interesting)
This is why people who receive chemo have problems with diarrhea and hair loss.. it just so happens that those cells are rapidly dividing and are affected just as well.
However, other treatments (few and far between,) such for Chronic Mylogenous Leukemia using Gleevac, which is designed to target the BCR-ABL fusion protein or Herceptin, used against breast cancers that overexpress ErbB2 receptor, are both novel in the sense that they exploit even more unique features of the cancer. That's what makes them so fantastic.
This new therapy won't provide too many benefits as far as the nastyness of treatment b/c it works just like chemo (in the case of metastases.) However, in the case of solid tumors ie GBM schwannomas, etc. perhaps it could be useful.
By the way, 10 patients is nearly not enough to be conclusive in any respect.
Re:Just reinventing the wheel (Score:5, Insightful)
and they aren't claiming anything conclusive, but with such promising results with 10 people it warrants serious research.
maybe when YOU come up with a cure for cancer you can be a little more critical, ok?
Parent
A different mode of transportation (Score:5, Informative)
2) I've read that it's a myth that cancer cells divide more quickly than healthy cells. The defect is that they continue dividing when they should sense that it's time to stop dividing. It's a matter of duration rather than rate.
3) There are many different kinds of chemotherapy. Some make hair fall out, some cause diarrhea, some cause nausea, some damage skin, some make nerves go whacky. I've had all of those side effects from one drug or another. There are BIG differences between chemotherapies which must mean there are differences in their effect on cells.
4) Brain cancers are particulary troublesome because many drugs can't crossing the blood-brain barrier. Electromagnetism could be very useful where chemotherapy is ineffective.
5) Immunotherapy can be useful at slowing tumor growth or making cancer cells more susceptible to chemotherapy. But immunotherapy alone often isn't enough, and immunotherapy can have very nasty side effects. I suffered much pain and scarring from Erbitux, a drug that blocks epithelial growth factor, but it didn't do a lick of good for my colon cancer.
6) A trial on ten patients won't be the basis for widespread application of this method. But positive results in a human trial is far ahead of many of the supposed breakthroughs that we read about on Slashdot.
AlpineR
Parent
Re:A different mode of transportation (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
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While the article does discuss possible uses for other cancers, I suspect that the studies have focused on brain cancer simply because it's easy to focus an electric field on a portion of the body, and non-cancerous brain cells are at the botton ranking for
Cells in the CNS don't replicate.. Hippocampus? (Score:4, Interesting)
However, recent research has shown that cells in the area of the hippocampus do in fact replicate, and are indicated in the role they play in cancer:
Take a peak:
http://www.biopsychiatry.com/newbraincell/index.h
long term effects. (Score:2)
little do they realise when you have brain cancer, long term effects are meaningless when you would otherwise die in the short term
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Personally, I am a big fan of homeopathic treatments. Everyone knows that the long term effects of electromagnetic fields are cancers. That's why I say not to use them for treatment! Go for the treatment that will not produce those nasty long term effects!
Homeopathy! Yeah, that's the ticket!
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the only way to bust assholes that make these claims is not to play the game, and demand THEY prove their statement. putting the work back on them usually shines the spot light of science and truth on them, and they run away.
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No, then they say "The evil drug/medical device companies have the money and resources, they should do the proving". Or they screech "precautionary principle, precautionary principle", thus nicely demonstrating the invalidity of that "principle".
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and then propose a bullshit natural treatment.
Never underestimate the power of a good chant! :)
Especially with an Enya song playing in the background.
Oh, and candles. Preferably Wiccan.
Re:long term effects. (Score:4, Insightful)
worst of all is the claims these idiots make, such as being able to diagnose illnesses just by the colour of your eyes. These charlatans usually try backup their nonsense with fake creditals from bogus "medical schools" of natural treatments.
the standard bullshit line is "oh look your eyes have -insert fake medical term- you must be low on -insert random vitamin- you need to buy this $80 bottle of - some product with the phrase natural whatever in it, which is filled with pills containing processed rubbish from china-"
Parent
They forgot to include the fact... (Score:2)
No! (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You laugh (and you should perhaps, because it's funny), but there's a deeper underlying truth. This is clear evidence that we cannot haphazardly dismiss all concerns about electromagnetic interaction with biological systems as "obvious hogwash", like is so frequently done on Slashdot. If you watch the field, you'll see that there are a large number of non-thermal non-ionizing mechanisms for biological effects like this.
Nobody tell Alex Chiu (Score:2)
EMF + TTF = AOK (Score:2)
Connection to cell-phone exposure worries? (Score:4, Interesting)
Now it is shown that "intermediate frequency electrical fields" (whatever that means) can damage cancerous brain cells. Does this mean that a physiological effect (beneficial in this case) has been demonstrated, so that an adverse effect becomes more plausible?
I have no idea of the frequencies and amplitudes involved in the two cases (tumour treating fields vs. cell phones).* I'm guessing that the situations are so different that this result says nothing about the physiological effects of cell-phone exposure, but as the linked article contains no useful information about this, and the paper is unavailable, it is just a guess.
* I've looked for the paper on the PNAS website, but I can't find it - perhaps it is accepted but not yet published.
The articles want to be free. (Score:4, Informative)
There is a lot of fuss about whether cell phones, wi-fi etc. can damage bodies and minds by their radio waves. Although there is a lot of fuss, it is not justified by much (any?) significant scientific data.
The full article [aacrjournals.org] has great references which show biological effects. At least one of these articles is available in full as a pdf. They report repeatable experiments and show relationships to frequency and intensity.
The disturbing part is that so much quack noise has been made about cell phone and wifi "radiation" that muddies the watter when so much useful information has been available since the 80's. It stinks that so much of society's resources were devoted to propagating noise when so much signal was available. This represents a complete failure of public education and broadcast media. At best, the failure is one of incompetence. At worst, it's intentional like the tobacco industry. Either way, the barriers must come down.
People who want to own ideas and publications are evil. Most research is publically supported and the public deserves the knowledge.
Parent
Intermediate Frequency? (Score:2)
Well, obviously (Score:2)
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Indeed, that should cause very serious concern for anyone who owns a GSM cell phone, as I'm pretty sure the frequency that the radio switches on and off when looking for a tower falls within that range, resulting in that obnoxious chirping in your computer speakers.
Has anyone done any research to test the effects of GSM tower probing on the human body?
Eureka! (Score:2)
it can't be! (Score:5, Funny)
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Of course, cell phones don't emit ionizing radiation. The silliness is that some people believe that non-ionizing radiation is automatically safe.
Crap! (Score:3, Funny)
200 kHz and it breaks apart clumps (Score:3, Informative)
http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct/show/NCT00379470?ord
"Since they change direction very rapidly (200 thousand times a second), they do not cause muscles to twitch, nor do they have any effects on other electrically activated tissues in the body (brain, nerves and heart). Since the intensities of TTFields in the body are very low, they do not cause heating."
->So it appears to be low intensity EM radiation at approximately 200 kHz.
"Due to the unique geometric shape of cancer cells when they are multiplying, TTFields cause the building blocks of these cells to move and pile up in such a way that the cells physically explode."
->To me it sounds like a rather localized effect requiring significant tuning to see any effect meaning that you're still safe to use your cell phone and can save the tinfoil for BBQing.
Some more explanations (Score:5, Insightful)
I should precurse this by saying that I am a medical physicist, irradiating cancer cells is what I do for a living.
Unlike the hype and scaremongering about cell phones, this actually has some science behind it. An article in Cancer Research (2004) (: Cancer Res. 2004 May 1;64(9):3288-95.) desribes the same technique (by the same authors) applied in vitro. This means they took some cancer cells in a test tube and subjected them to the fields. There they saw that over the course of 24 hours there is an inhibition in growth, over several days in tumors implanted in mice a reduction in tumor growth was seen (this means that the tumor grows slower).
Independently, a group in Cleveland investigated the influence of electric fields at very low frequencies (50Hz, yes that's the frequency of our daily AC-current) and found inhibition of cell cycles, (this means that the cell is moving through it's cycle).
To put things into context, we see some inhibition at low frequency (50Hz), and disruption of cell division at 100-300kHz. Cell phones work at frequencies of the horder of GHz. (for you slashdotters, replacing Hz with bytes will tell you all you need to now about the relative values of kHz, MHz and GHz ;-) )
So I am reasonably optimistic that there is some truth to all this. However, there seems to be a selectivity that will not work as an advantage all of the time. The technique only seems to work if the field is switched on during cell mitosis. This means it will only work on cells that are actively replicating. So the it will only work well if and when the cells you are targeting have a different proliferation rate, than the ones you do not want to affect. Of course brain cells are a good example as their replication rate is extremely slow (if any).
Some caveats: The experiment (in vitro) as described, has not been reproduced by an independent group. The number of patients used in the in vivo experiment is very low, too low to distinguish with any significant probability that the results obtained are not merely a statistical effect. The results however are promising. But that is the way science works. Slowly and methodically: FYI there is a specific way things are done when new modalities are found: 1) You look for dose effects, what is the dose that does no harm. This means you take a group of people and give each subsection and ever increasing dose until you see some bad effects. 2) Then perform a study of efficacy giving a large group of people the determined dose and see if there still is an effect, 3) Finally you compare this with a standard of care (the thing you normally do) with your new stuff in a double blind study (which means you, nor the patient knows beforehand what the treatment is going to be and see if you see a different cure rate.
You might say, if it is so good we want it now. I can say the process described above goes faster the bigger the difference is with the standard of care.
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Next thing you know, daily chocolate and wine will be good for you!
Psychologically speaking, it is.
Especially if shared and it leads to sex.